Dude! Take Your Turn!
A Gaming Life
New to Me – December 2025
This is going to be an unusual “new to me” post, because there is literally only one game on it!
December was a really slow month, as shown on Friday’s post.
A really low amount of games, covered only because of a bunch of plays of two different games.
A couple of Sundays were cancelled, especially Sundays that I was hoping/planning to bring out a new game (though it is only a “new” game because I haven’t played it, since I bought it in 2024), but those game days were cancelled due to a low number of people able/willing to join us.
Thus, the Cult of the New to Me gave me a pass this month.
No rebellion, no trying to take me out (though they did take me out to Christmas dinner, which was amazing!).
(though I do miss my grandma’s deviled eggs!)
I think it helped that the one game was from 2022, so while it’s not “old,” it’s certainly not “new” in the boardgame sense.
Let’s make this short and sweet.
Without further ado (all of my ado was lost down in the dungeon anyway), let’s get this minor post started!
Read MoreTop 50 Games Played of All Time – 2026 Edition (#50-41)
Two years goes by so fast.
Hell, even a month goes by so fast, as I remember looking forward to all of the holiday fun and time off in December, and now it’s January and where did the time go?
However, it has been two years since I did a Top 50 Games Played of All Time list, and it’s that time again!
The Top 50 in 2024 was based on me having played 534 games in total by the end of 2023.
At the end of 2025, I have now played 687 unique games, so it’s time to look back and see which ones are the best ones out there, at least in my opinion.
Last time I expanded to a Top 50 (instead of Top 25) because I had played so many games finally. It didn’t feel weird doing a list that was more than 10% of the games I’d played.
I won’t be doing a Top 100 until I get to 1000 games, so it won’t be for another 4-5 years, I don’t think.
At least not at this rate.
How did I compile this list?
Much thanks to the wonderful PubMeeple ranking engine for letting me choose all of the Boardgame Geek games that I’ve rated and then compare two of them at a time for a total of almost 3400 comparisons.
Yes, that is me.
It takes a long time, and will take longer as there are more games.
But I love seeing not only the Top 50, but also the rankings below that and how things change.
Maybe something dropped from 189 to 286!
How am I to know that unless I compare them all?
One day I may get too tired to do all of that, though at least PubMeeple lets you do it over a series of days so you don’t have to do it all at once.
Anyway, we both know that you just want to see what games are on my list, so let me say a couple of things before we get started.
First, many of these games were only played once, so my rankings/feelings about the game are based on that play.
Subsequent plays may increase/decrease my regard for them, so next time there may be a lot of movement.
Secondly, because I’ve only played 687 games (and only just over half of the Top 100 on BGG), many games that are highly-regarded will just not appear here because I haven’t played them.
So you Star Wars: Rebellion fans are just going to have to come to a Canadian convention that I’m going to so we can play it.
Ok?
Finally, this list was compiled on December 31st, 2025, so rest assured that by the time the final installment has been posted in early February, I will have played something new to me that I would have included in the Top 50 if I had only played it.
Check out this list in 2028 and see it!
There will be some surprises in this list for long-time followers of this blog.
Big surprises.
One thing that’s not a surprise?
Lucky Loop is still at the bottom, at #687
With that, let’s begin!
Oh, shut up.
Read MoreDecember 2025 Gaming
December turned out to be a gaming lost cause for the most part.
Two Sundays cancelled for various reasons, one shortened one, and a bunch of work stuff going on so lunches weren’t always available as well.
In fact, if it wasn’t for my Final Girl plays (6) and four games of the very short Werewords in one lunch period, it would have been a wasteland!
I also didn’t really get to use my 3 days between Christmas and New Year’s for much gaming (just one Final Girl game) because of having to take care of computer issues and the like.
It looks even worse compared to November, because of the November convention.
Still, it was a restful month in other ways, and I do love the holidays.
In December, I managed to play just 13 unique games a total of 24 times (and remember, 10 of those were for 2 games!).
Here’s what I played last month.
And here it is in grid format.
Many thanks to the wonderful Boardgame Stats for the app that provides these images and lets us track our plays so efficiently!
As you can see, only one new to me game last month!
That post is going to be incredibly short.
However, there were some highlights for the month, so let’s look at those.
Read MoreBlog in Review – 2025
Happy New Year, everybody!
I hope you had a wonderful and safe holiday season and new year’s celebration last night.
Maybe you were out celebrating, or just having drinks with friends?
Or maybe you were even asleep?
Whichever it was, I hope it was good for you.
As I did last year, and for the last 6 years as well, this is a Blog Review post for 2025, looking back at my gaming and blogging and reflecting on the changes from year to year.
It’s not a full year in review post, since that would seriously depress me.
I mean, 2025 was a real shitshow overall.
Instead, it’s just me, my personal stuff, gaming and blogging.
Which, while not a shitshow, was really up and down.
Let’s take a real look and see what’s what.
Read MoreHorrifying Christmas – Final Girl – North Pole Nightmare Review
Just in time to miss Christmas by a few days, how about checking out a Christmas-themed Final Girl feature film with all the bells and whistles of cheer and good tidings to you!
Oh, and some evil monster wanting to kill everybody (including you) at the North Pole.
It’s time for Mrs. Claus and one of the Elves to step up and fight him off!
Yes, North Pole Nightmare is a Final Girl feature film set in Santa’s Village with the maniacal Krampus as the villain.
Let’s nail all of those Christmas traditions!
This feature film was designed by A. J. Porfirio with art by Vincent Dutrait (what a catch!) and was published in 2023.
It’s a “Special Feature” for Series 2.
This one is a straightforward bloodbath, except that it has a few extra twists which really make this one engaging.
Before Krampus steals all of our presents away (those left over from Christmas because I’m lame and couldn’t get enough plays done in time), let’s take a look at it.
Read MoreNotable Books Read in 2025
I love Goodreads as a way of tracking books read, though I am also really liking Storygraph as an alternative (since Goodreads is owned by Amazon, in case that matters to you).
Starting in 2025, I have been using both, but eventually I may just go to Storygraph. I try to limit my Amazon usage (though we are Prime members, so I know we’re not there yet) so I would love to use Storygraph exclusively.
One of these days, I’ll break this chain.
But not quite yet.
That being said, 2025 was a great year for books read.
My Goodreads reading challenge for 2025 was 55 books (I was conservative again) and I ended up reading 59!
I’m quite proud of that one.
This isn’t going to be a Top 5 or anything like that.
Instead, it’s going to be a list of books that I think you might enjoy, either from the non-fiction perspective or from the fiction one.
With that caveat, let’s begin!
Read MoreBGG Top Games – 1501 Through 1600
Sorry for breaking the weekly schedule, those of you who have been following these posts so religiously (hi, Bob!)
Last week had other important posts to do that didn’t take quite as much time, because these posts do take a lot of effort and such.
Not to mention it was Christmas!
But we’re back with another century of Boardgame Geek rated games goodness.
This time we’re looking at games rated on BGG from 1501 – 1600 and I have to admit that the returns on these are getting sketchy.
I’ve played fewer of them as time goes on and some of them just aren’t that interesting.
If the trend continues, that may put an end to these posts!
But for now, let’s carry on.
In this batch, I have played ten of them while owning (or once owning) four.
There may be some that I’m interested in playing, though, and there are at least a couple of gems here.
So let’s get started!
Read MoreRiding the Rift – Riftforce Review
There are a lot of two-player lane battler games out there, some with twists and some…without.
The best ones have cards with different abilities that are squaring off against your opponent in an attempt to have the most strength in a lane.
Riftforce meets half that definition, and it’s the good half!
Riftforce is a 2-player card game (though you can play it solo or in team mode with the expansion) published by Capstone Games in 2021.
It was designed by Carlo Bortolini with artwork by Miguel Coimbra.
What adds variety to the game is that each player is going to draft four different guilds which will then give them access to their elementals to play onto the long rift that divides the table.
Players are trying to accumulate Riftforce (wow, that’s the name of the game!) in order to win the game.
Read MoreSee You on the Flip Side – Fliptoons Review
One of the big hits in 2025, especially when you’re looking at fun, fast, and zany card games, is Fliptoons.
This game just basically covers all the bases if you’re looking for something light but yet intensely fun (sorry, Dan).
The game was designed by Jordy Adan and Renato Simões, with beautiful artwork by Diego Sá. It was published by Thunderworks Games in, as I said above, 2025.
The game is part deckbuilder, part auto-battler (except that there is no battle) and part race.
Those seem pretty distinctive, so you might be wondering what the hell I’m talking about.
Let me explain!
Read MoreDoing “Unethical” Things in Games
Short post tonight because it’s the Monday before Christmas and I wasn’t going to post anything, until something on Boardgame Geek sparked a thought.
Sam C on Boardgame Geek asked this question about Architects of the West Kingdom (a fantastic game, though one that’s falling a bit in my estimation as other games overtake it):
“This may seem silly, but it’s important to me to not play games with stealing. This game looks like a really solid worker placement game though…
Would this game still be fun without stealing taxes? Would I not have access to the black market? Would I not be able to afford very much without stealing? Or would I need to play a straight virtue strategy every time?”
Now, I’ve seen questions about “take that” in games, including about Architects! I know some people don’t like to do anything bad to their opponents in a game.
But this is the first time I’ve really heard a question about doing something immoral in a game that wasn’t a game about immoral actions in general.
Read More